"The Kazzinc deal is closed, and today we own 29 percent in
this enterprise," Kuandyk Bishimbayev, deputy head of the fund,
told reporters. "These were borrowed funds," he added without
disclosing the price of the stake or giving further details.

Kazakhstan's largest holding company adds the zinc miner to
its stakes worth over $80 billion in domestic companies
including miners, airlines, railways and banks. Its deal is
likely to prevent Glencore from achieving its goal for ownership
of Kazzinc.

Glencore, which owns 69.61 percent, had earlier said it
intended to boost its stake to 93 percent for a total of $3.2
billion, including $2.2 billion in cash and $1 billion in
equity.

Glencore declined to comment.

Bishimbayev said the fund bought the shares from Verny
Capital, in which billionaire Bolat Utemuratov, unofficially
nicknamed "a grey cardinal" for his connections with
Kazakhstan's political and business elite, is a large
stakeholder.

Kazakh investment bank Halyk Finance, which closely monitors
Glencore and Kazzinc, said that based on the price Glencore paid
in October for 18.91 percent of Kazzinc, Samruk-Kazyna
would have paid about $2.1 billion.

"This investment is in essence a strategic one, and a
smaller stake would be simply of no interest to the government,"
Halyk Finance analyst Mariam Zhumadil said in an interview.

"Yes, this stake is not a controlling one - just (like) the
government's participation in Kazakhmys and ENRC
," she said in a reference to the Central Asian nation's
London-listed miners, which are the largest Kazakh producers of
copper, zinc and alumina.

Last year Kazzinc boosted zinc output by 0.2 percent to
301,237 tonnes.